I made a mix for a French website. It’s not for dancing. More a college radio style collection of post-punk styled stuff, a bunch of uk lost generation type tracks and 2 songs from upcoming Acute releases, The Trypes and for the first time online, a track from the unreleased Lines material. Stream it here and read about us in french. Otherwise you can download it directly:

New Clothes for the New World
Tracklist below.

Been busy in Acute land. Disco Zombies LP came out late last month and has been doing well. Good reviews, airplay from respectable radio stations, demand out-stripping supply and, apparently, like all good music, “Big in Japan”. Getting ready for the Happy Refugees records Return to Last Chance Saloon coming late November. They’ve got a facebook page set up, which is a good place to learn about things such as their upcoming visit to New York to play with Crystal Stilts in early December. I’ll have more information on the Acute site soon, if you’re press/radio/retail types looking for info on this (or any of our releases), please get in touch! If that wasn’t enough, we’ve begun working on our next release, The Trypes, who, like Happy Refugees, have gotten back together to play some shows. More news soon!

In the meantime, check out the aforementioned mix. Here’s the tracklist:

1. Seefeel – Faults
2. Locust – I Become Overwhelmed
3. Design for Living – Red Ribbon Day
4. It’s Immaterial – A Gigantic Raft (in the Philippines)
5. The Raincoats – Balloon
6. Family Fodder – Silence
7. Disco Inferno – New Clothes for the New World
8. Pram – Dancing on a Star
9. Broadcast – DDL
10. AA – Society Stinks
11. Home & Garden – (please) Fix My Horn (my brakes don’t work)
12. The Lines – Raffle
13. Broadcast – Microtronics Thirteen
14. Din A Testbild – Die Siebziger
15. Camberwell Now – Speculative Fiction
16. Broadcast – Microtronics Fifteen
17. Conrad Schnitzler & Gregor Schnitzler – The Shark Eats Ice
18. Positive Noise – Ghosts
19. Broadcast – Still Feels Like Tears
20. The Trypes – (From the) Morning Glories
21. Robert Wyatt – A Sunday in Madrid

As you can see above, we’re having a little record release party as part of my monthly party Dazzle Ships. We’ll be joined by Kevin from What’s Your Rupture?, who used to DJ with me at Plant Bar on monday nights back “in the day”. We’ll be playing tons of awesome punk/post-punk/DIY/art-punk/new wave madness. More vintage late 70s/early 80s 7″ singles than you can shake a stick at. And be careful with that stick, some of these records are expensive. I’ll also have a handful or pre-release copies for sale, so get one before everybody else can…when it comes out a few days later.

Kevin happens to be working on a really cool reissue, which I may not be able to talk about, but it’s another in an amazing list of awesome reissues from that period. You know, when Todd and I started Acute, there weren’t many people reissuing this kind of music (LTM being the major exception). It was too recent and there wasn’t much interest. By the early 2000s there was a sort of post-punk revival, which meant lots of hardcore kids discovered Gang of 4. In a short period of time there was a flurry of activity and interest and many of the big acts were reissued and compiled. Soul Jazz, DFA, Domino and other great labels helped bring back some of the sounds. But by 2004 people were saying it was all over. Everything of “worth” had been rediscovered, the trend passed and people moved onto new sounds. Psyche-folk revival! (e.g.). I remember standing in the basement of a NY bar/club talking to Simon Reynolds about his soon to be published book Rip It Up and Start Again, and our long in the making Fire Engines compilation Hungry Beat. We both worried that the time had passed. That’s not to say we were concerned with following trends or that these subjects weren’t still worthy, just that the marketing “buzz” of being tied into the “hot” post-punk revival of the early 00s might not exist anymore.

Surely his book created a bump of interest, and somehow more labels were getting involved, more essential records were getting released. We continued to release a CD every year or two. Some got written off as yet more barrel scraping, while others were proof that the barrel was deeper than previously suspected (by some). There’s often an amazement that there is/was something so good that had become so obscure. There’s a fine line between cult favorites of appeal to fanatics and stuff that could be said to be just quality music all around. I’m glad both get’s reissued, I’m just surprised at the incredulousness of some that there’s still stuff worthy being (re)discovered. Maybe people have to dig deeper, maybe the gems need a bit a more polishing, but people are still digging up folk, soul, rock etc, stuff that’s way older than this period we’re talking about. Combine that with the simple fact that there was an absolute EXPLOSION of releases following punk, that between 1976 and 1984 or so the amount of records that came out is mind-boggling, you’d have to dedicate a lifetime to come close to becoming an expert. Why that happened, and why it died down (if it really did..it did, but also changed, is another topic for another post).

And “post-punk” cycles in and out of trends and spotlights. For a while everything seemed to be going minimal-synth, and if you could call it cold wave maybe you’d get a couple bucks for it on Discogs but nobody wanted to hear disco basslines and funky guitar and art-school angst! But then it seems to turn back in this direction. Maybe the synth stuff was getting too expensive! And you suddenly have a younger generation drawing on C86 sounds, which I think contributes to yet another wave of interest in the late 70s/early 80s stuff, because C86 is a pretty clear continuation of that stuff.

Now we’ve got our first vinyl releases coming out shortly. Disco Zombies next week, Happy Refugees late November, the Trypes after that and even more stuff. In the meantime there’s been great reissues coming from all kinds of places, including some new ones this week and past and upcoming releases I just learned about, enough to have me excited for the reissue scene in general, excited enough to want to list a bunch of them and suggest everyone check them out. Here’s a few. I started out describing each one then WordPress ate that draft(I blame Safari in Lion) so i gave up.

Social Climbers-Social Climbers on Drag City/Yoga

Art Yard-The Law/Something In Your Eyes on Ride the Snake

The Embarrassment-Sex Drive/Patio Set on Last Laugh Records

The Styrenes-Drano in Your Veins/Circus Highlights and The Mirrors-Shirley/She Smiled Wild on Violet Times

UV Pop-Just a Game on Sacred Bones

The Distractions and the Wild Swans on Occultation

Martin Newell’s Songs for a Fallow Land on Fixed Identity

Jeff & Jane Hudson, The Servents, Nick Nicely, Charles De Goal, The Wake and the Monochrome Set all on Captured Tracks

The Raincoats reissuing their own records.

That’s just a few recent releases. What am I forgetting or don’t know about yet?

Plus all the great more synth oriented stuff on labels like Medical Records, Dark Entries and Minimal Wave. The occasional relevant reissue from DFA or Soul Jazz, And there’s the longer running labels like Cherry Red, Overground, LTM that continue to put out great stuff. And of course Hyped2Death, where some of us learn about this stuff in the first place. Point being…there’s still a lot of great stuff out there, some that people have been waiting years to be released again, some deserving of reappraisal and some nobody’s ever heard in the first place!

Acute Records, after 10+ years of CDs, has finally released an actual record. It is out later this month. I’ll write more about it closer to the release date, but I’ve posted the official record page here, featuring some background info, photos, free downloads etc. Check it out! Anyone who wants more information, please get in touch!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du9Ls_UnzXU[/youtube]

As I’ve been hinting for some time, Acute Records has a few tricks up it’s sleeve…actual RECORDS. The Disco Zombies test pressing is approved, Happy Refugees is being mastered and Trypes is almost there. What’s behind this flurry of activity? This absolute torrent of output? I don’t know, we’ll talk more about it soon, I just wanted to take this chance to help spread the word about some Speed the Plough shows tonight and tomorrow and coming up, as well as plug their new album. Speed the Plough began life as The Trypes, an early 80s New Jersey outfit with a heavy affinity for a Velvets meet Beatles take on pastoral psychedelic college rock to drop some rock crit cliche terms. Part of the “Hoboken” scene, they were eventually joined by Bill and Glenn from the Feelies during their post-Crazy Rhythms hiatus. After The Trypes released their fantastic EP The Explorer’s Hold, Bill and Glenn reformed the Feelies and the remaining Trypes formed Speed the Plough, who have recently returned with some wonderful material, their first full-length in 15 years. Check out their website here and preview/purchase via iTunes.

Tonight’s show is at Pianos with The Ascetic Junkies, Thousand Pities and Wild Carnation, Brenda Sauter of The Trypes and The Feelie’s other band. Show starts at 8pm, 10 bucks. Pianos is at 158 Ludlow Street. Last time I DJ’d there was with Mike Simonetti for New Years of 2002 or 3 or something with James Chance performing and Rub-n-Tug going on at 3am, opening with Wake Up and Make Love to Me.

Speed the Plough are also playing in Montclair tomorrow night, home of the Montclair Book Center and a really exciting show in a few weeks where they’ll be playing with a rare performance by Yung Wu, yet another Feelies-related project, that one fronted by percussionist Dave Weckerman. More info on their site and later, and more info about our exciting Trypes reissue soon.

I post playlists to an online radio station called Viva Radio. My show is called Pyjamarama. Here are the latest two shows you can likely listen to in the archives. Sorry I haven’t been posting Acute news. There will be a LOT coming soon about some exciting upcoming. I’m currently working on at least 6, for reals. For now check out these super patriotic U S of A oriented playlists. Perfect music to listen to while you read this article about how doomed we are.

Too Far Gone
1. Yung Wu – Eternal Ice
2. My Dad is Dead – Too Far Gone
3. Death of Samantha – Simple as That
4. Ego Summit – Illogical
5. 100 Flowers – Strip Club
6. The Embarrassment – Viewmaster
7. Sun City Girls – Radio Morocco
8. The Plugz – Red Eye #9
9. The Dils – Sound of the Rain
10. Savage Republic – Ivory Coast
11. Thinking Fellers Union Local #282 – Undertaker
12. Rock*A*Teens – Cherry Red Compilation
13. Meat Puppets – New Gods
14. Minutemen – The Anchor
15. Hüsker Dü – Something I Learned Today
16. Sonic Youth – Pipeline/Kill Time
17. Live Skull – 5-D
18. The Trypes – A Plan Revised

Modern Life
1. The Girls – Jeffrey I Hear You
2. Dave Weckerman – Shore Leave
3. Come On – Don’t Walk on the Kitchen Floor
4. Neptune’s Car – Lucky Charms
5. The Mumps – Crocodile Tears
6. Comateens – Late Night City
7. Pere Ubu – Heaven
8. The Student Teachers – Channel 13
9. Nervus Rex – Love Affair
10. U.S. Ape – Ignorance is Bliss
11. The dB’s – Black and White
12. The Fans – True
13. The Mirrors – Annie
14. The Styrenes – Jaguar Ride
15. Glorious Strangers – Modern Life
16. Model Citizens – Shift the Blame
17. The Feelies – Raised Eyebrows
18. The Girls – Fresco Lounge
19. The Suburbs – World War III
20. A Band – No Love

Not an Acute release, though there will be a LOT of Acute releases to talk about soon. Zoovox Theme by Zoovox is the exciting first release from my Dazzle Ships DJ partners Tropical Jeremy and Ben Gebhardt. You’ve surely seen Jeremy’s name on this blog since he’s probably DJ’d with me more then any other lucky person on the planet. These guys have been working hard in their waterfront studio (for real, you should see the view) and knocked out this classic slice of cosmic bliss. They let me design the art, a generic record label branded label with an empty space for the specific details. I got to specify 2 colors with overprinting for the first time. Didn’t quite get that magic third color but it was still pretty cool. Anyway, this one-sided 12″ vinyl (or digital download) release is hopefully the first of many. You can listen to it and purchase it here. You can also hear it this thursday here:

I will be DJing with Arp and Safety Scissors this thursday at Zebulon, 258 Wythe in Williamsburg. Arp is one of the busiest guys in the business. I met him as a member of Tussle and writer for XLR8R many years ago. Since then he’s made waves as a member of The Alps, solo releases as Arp and a great collaboration with one of my personal heros, Anthony Moore. Safety Scissors I first met when we both DJ’d at Luxx opening up for Martin Moscrop of A Certain Ratio’s first DJ appearance in NYC, but he’s better known for his various techno/electronica/proptronica releases and remixes. We will be playing a no doubt stunning collection of weird and wonderful sounds for vibing and or dancing.

It’s worth noting that Jeremy, Arp and Safety Scissors all used to live in San Francisco and now they all live in New York City. Make of that what you will.

p.s. new york rules

p.p.s. except its too expensive

Blank City has been held over for a third week. There will be a bunch more Q+A sessions after showings with people like Debbie Harry, Thurston Moore, Pat Place, Susan Seidelman etc, but saturday (tomorrow’s!) 2:25 showing will have a Q+A with Sal P. from Liquid Liquid and the music “supervisor”, me.  Come down and ask me difficult questions and make me look like a fool, or ask Sal about his awesome band. Tickets here.

I post playlists to an online radio station called Viva Radio. There are tons of great shows on there from awesome people. My “show” is called Pyjamarama. Of the last three “episodes” one of them as as new as this week and at least two of them are available in my archives. Here they “are”.

From a Silver Phial
Just read Mr. Tambourine Man, the biography of Gene Clark, who is my favorite songwriter ever. You wouldn’t think that of me, unless you knew me. The amount of folk and country in my collection is relatively small. Still, nothing quite touches me the way his music does. This playlist used him as a starting point but as usual I just went with my gut. There are some connections here…Beau Brummels writing music for the Everlys, Dion and Del Shannon’s lesser known late 60s rock, Del Shannon had covered Billy Nicholl’s Come Again, Billy, Del Shannon and Small Faces all on (or almost on) Immediate, Scott Walker covering Tim Hardin, Tim singing a song the Small Faces covered, a bunch of baroque stuff. One of the most interesting things I learned from the Gene Clark book was that during one of his few brief reunions with the Byrds just after Crosby left the band during The Notorious Byrd Brothers, Gene sang harmony vocals on “Going Back” and with Roger co-wrote “Get To You” but never got credit. I should upload an all Gene playlist. His sound really varied over the years but his songs are always instantly recognizable as his. That voice. That melancholy. My favorite.

1. Link Wray – La-de-da
2. The Byrds – Get To You
3. Dillard and Clark – With Care from Someone
4. The Everly Brothers – Shady Grove
5. The Beau Brummels – Turn Around
6. The Charltans – Codine
7. Gene Clark – From a Silver Phial
8. Small Faces – Song of a Baker
9. Billy Nicholls – Come Again
10. Del Shannon – It’s My Feeling
11. Dion & the Belmonts – My Girl the Month of May
12. The Move – Message From the Country
13. Neil Young – Walk On
14. Tim Hardin – Red Balloon
15. Scott Walker – Black Sheep Boy
16. The Merry-Go-Round – Saturday Night
17. The Left Banke – My Friend Today
18. Colin Blunstone – Though You Are Far Away
19. Gene Clark – In a Misty Morning

Sleep Will Come
No great logic here other than opening and closing with obscure Syd Barrett covers. The Able Tasmans song is a recent discovery/obsession of mine. Louder Animal Group I learned about from Steve at Low Down Kids years ago, one of those mysterious post-punk DIY singles distributed by Rough Trade. I forgot how great a song that is until I put this playlist together.

1. Dolphins – She Took a Long Cold Look
2. David Bowie – Speed of Life
3. Bill Nelson’s Red Noise – Wonder Toys that Will Last Forever
4. Devo – Meca-Mania Boy
5. Jacques Dutronc – Mini, Mini, Mini
6. Fred Frith – Evolution
7. Tres – I Doubt
8. Louder Animal Group – Pip Pop
9. Brian Eno – Strong Flashes of Light
10. Jez and Vini – Sleep Will Come
11. Richard Jobson and Bill Nelson – Ieyasu
12. Fiat Lux – Feels Like Winter Again
13. Robert Marlow – The Face of Dorian Gray
14. Michael Nyman – A Walk Through H
15. Able Tasmans – Hold Me 1
16. No Night Sweats – Nights in a Glass
17. Franco Battiato – No U-Turn
18. Cleaners From Venus – Late Night

Late Night
Thanks on this one to my old friend Liz who made me mix-tapes with Pink Industry and Cocteau Twins on it when we were sophomores in high school. She was also a partial inspiration for one of my very first Viva playlists, the long-archived Chasing Sheep. Thanks also to Brian for hipping me to the Sade and Laetitia Sadier songs.

1. Pink Industry – Anyone’s Fashion
2. Cocteau Twins – Wax and Wane
3. Ultra Vivid Scene – Kind of a Drag
4. Salem – Frost
5. Bryan Ferry – Song to the Siren
6. Sade – Soldier of Love
7. A.C. Marias – One of Our Girls Has Gone Missing
8. Colin newman – We Means, We Starts
9. The Passions – I’m In Love With a German Film Star
10. Young Marble Giants – Ode to Booker T
11. Laetitia Sadier – One Million Year Trip
12. Ben Watt and Robert Wyatt – Walter and John
13. Robert Wyatt – A Sunday in Madrid
14. Syd Barrett – Late Night

Since you all read this blog religiously I’m sure you remember when Blank City, the awesome documentary about the Punk/No Wave/Transgressive film/music scene of the 70s/80s that I helped music supervise premiered at the Tribecca Film Festival. Since then it’s played (and slayed) film festivals all over the world, got a new poster (above, designed by this guy) and is now getting it’s theatrical premiere. The premiere is at the IFC Center next Wednesday, April 6th but tickets won’t be available till monday night. More info here. After that it premieres everywhere else, almost. All the info can be seen at the new Blank City website. Check out the trailer below, and from the website here’s the list of the first openings

• Opens Wednesday April 6, 2011 @ IFC Center, New York City
• Opens Friday, May 6, 2011 @ Denver Film Center, Denver CO
• Opens Friday, May 20, 2011 @ Landmark Kendall Square, Boston MA
• Opens Friday, May 27, 2011 @ Landmark Nuart, Los Angeles CA
• Opens Friday, June 3, 2011 @ Landmark Theater, San Francisco CA
• Opens Friday, June 3, 2011 @ Landmark Shattuck, Berkeley CA
• Opens Friday, June 10, 2011 @ Landmark Ritz at the Bourse Philadelphia, PA
• Opens Friday, June 17, 2011 @ Landmark E Street Cinema, Washington DC
• June 10-11 @ Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus OH
• Opens Friday August 12, 2011@ Northwest Film Forum, Seattle, WA